Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Friday that everyone was welcome in the Democrat party after telling a pro-life Democrat recently that he could live without her vote.
“I will not pursue politics by telling people they can’t be on our side if they’re not with us a hundred percent of the time. This is a time for addition, not rejection, for belonging, not exclusion,” he stated during the eighth Democrat debate in Manchester, New Hampshire.
He continued:
We need to put together the majority that can decisively defeat Donald Trump, and in order to do that, we need a politics that is defined not by who we reject, but how we bring everybody into the fold.
And if you are low income, or if you’re able to contribute a lot, if you’ve always voted Democrat or if you’re an independent or even a Republican who’s just sick of looking your kids in the eye and trying to explain this White House, we need you to join us right now.
However, when pro-life Democrat Kristen Day asked Buttigieg if he would make room for those like her in the party, he said he hoped to earn her vote but believed it was a woman’s right to choose.
“I am pro-choice, and I believe that a woman ought to be able to make that decision,” he commented during the Fox News town hall January 26.
“The best I can offer is that if we can’t agree on where to draw the line, the next best thing we can do is agree on who should draw the line, and in my view, it’s the woman who’s faced with that decision in her own life,” he concluded.
Following the encounter, Day, who is executive director of Democrats for Life of America, expressed her dissatisfaction with the former mayor’s answer.
“I just wanted to know if he [Buttigieg] thought there was room for us in the party. And he doesn’t,” she said, adding that more people needed to confront the Democrat candidates on the issue.
“We need pro-life Democrats all over the country to go to these candidates and ask the question: Do you want pro-life Democrats in the party? Because if not, we won’t vote for you,” Day stated, adding, “We’ve had enough.”